League of Cities Creates Task Force on Education, Children

Washington--The National League of Cities last week formed a new
task force on children and education that will seek to increase the
group's influence in the national education-reform debate.

At their first meeting, task-force members recommended that the
organization become more active in lobbying on federal issues affecting
children and education. They also favored establishment of a program to
facilitate the sharing of successful local programs between cities.

Similar moves are being considered by the National Conference of
Mayors, which in July will vote on a resolution that, among other
provisions, calls for the group to host its own national education
summit.

The initiatives come in response to concern among many elected city
officials about the lagging performance of urban school systems. And
they reflect the fact that members of both organizations are
increasingly worried about local education-related issues, even though
many of them have little or no direct control over school-district
budgets and policies.

There is a growing realization 4among urban officials that their
cities "suffer drastically" when their young people are not educated
sufficiently to become productive contributors to society, Mayor Norman
Rice of Seattle, co-chairman of the League of Cities' task force, said
in an interview last week.

"If we don't all recognize that we have a role to play in solving
these problems, we're going to see this country fast move to
second-class status," he said.

In a recent league poll, 10 percent of the members responding listed
education as the number-one problem facing cities. Only drugs and
finances were cited by more members.

Cooperation Sought

The league's task force will work to build cooperative relationships
with the nation's major education lobbying groups, in the same manner
that Mr. Rice hopes locally elected officals will enter into
partnerships with their schools.

The Seattle Mayor has no say over the budget or decisions of his
city's school board, but Mr. Rice made improving education a major
theme of his successful bid last fall to become the city's first black
mayor.

Mr. Rice is widely credited with helping turn a raging debate over
student busing into an ongoing assessment of the quality of city
schools. In May, he said, Seattle plans to host a two-day citywide
summit on education that will be preceded by 20 to 30 neighborhood
summits.

"I'm hoping that they will refine, clarify, or develop our
priorities, and I'm hoping as Mayor I can firm up and direct our
resources where they need to be," he said.

Mr. Rice and other league officials said much of the discussion at
the task force's meeting here last week centered on how city
governments can build cooperative relationships with their school
districts.

One of the ideas attracting the most interest, they said, is the
creation of joint committees of school and city officials, like those
that meet regularly in such cities as Minneapolis, Evanston, Ill., and
Rochester, N.Y.

The other co-chairman of the new task force, Mayor Donald Fraser of
Minneapolis, and its vice-chairman, Mayor Alice K. Wolf of Cambridge,
Mass., are both leaders in building new relationships with their school
systems, they said.

"One of the things that came out was a sensitivity to the notions of
collaboration and cooperation," said John E. Kyle, the league official
designated to staff the task force. "That's the policy they would like
to take."

"We are cognizant of the role of school boards in running the
schools," said Mayor Rice. "We're talking about how we can enhance the
partnership between cities and schools, rather than how we can lead it
or take it over."

Mayors' Summit Considered

In contrast, Mayor Ted Mann of Newton, Mass., who has been leading
the push for a Conference of Mayors education summit, is less worried
about arousing fears of interference among school-board members.

"I'm not concerned with who feels threatened," he said in an
interview last week. "If a school district is not doing right by
education, mayors pay the price."

Mayor Mann, who is chairman of the conference's human-development
committee, said that a summit convened by the mayors would draw public
attention to the crises in urban schools and help persuade businesses
and universities to join in partner4ships with local schools.

It would also, he said, "heighten the awareness of mayors of the
penalty we will pay if we don't do something."

The proposed resolution would also direct the Conference of Mayors
to increase its lobbying efforts for more federal funding for such
programs as Head Start and student financial aid.

The conference's membership consists of mayors of cities with more
than 30,000 residents, while the League of Cities is a much larger
organization whose members include both mayors and city-council
members.

Vol. 09, Issue 25

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